May Family Crest

My family's lineage is Scottish however, my family is pretty much based out of Gonzales, Texas. I personally don't live there but it's where my roots are.The town of Gonzales is really small so it's one of those "everybody knows everybody" type of places. My family is incredibly close and loving. We have things that some families may not have and that's ok...it makes us unique and aMAYzing.

The story behind the marks on the crest are all meaningful to the May family. Let's start at the top. Obviously the name is May which is shown and below that is a chicken in a mailbox holding a plunger. The story behind this is, each year in Gonzales there is a festival called "Come & Take It". The festival is based on an event in Texas history (if you don't know it, Google it). In the last 70's they started an event at the festival called the chicken flying contest in which you bring your own chicken, get up on the stage, put your chicken in a mailbox that has the back cut off, open the front and use a plunger to push your chicken out. The chicken that flys the farthest is the winner. It's pretty hilarious. Now since the inception of that contest, the May family dominated the contest and won every single year. After about 10 years or so, they stopped the contest...I can only assume it was because we were the only winners. It wasn't until recently that they started having

the contest again. We are getting our chickens ready! The shape of the shield is a pretty standard Scottish shield shape. In the top left panel, the M6 stands for the eldest in the family. I am the oldest grandchild so the M6 is my two grandparents, my dad and his three siblings which equals to six. The M is obviously for May. The top right panel is a jar of pickles. This along with the chicken leg are so important. As a member of the May family, we are all very priviledged to have had a grandmother who made the best fried chicken on the planet and who also canned the best pickles. There have been many many fights over those pickles. We lost our sweet Granny Dean two years ago to cancer and any of us who still had pickles, took our sweet time to finish the jar. On the bottom right panel is a cannon and a star. This is NOT a representation of a gun rights nonsense campaign that is going on where people are using this symbol so so incorrectly! This IS, in fact, a representation of the flag that was flown during the battle between the Texans and Mexicans over a cannon which happens to be what the Come & Take It festival is based on and it is an event that we, as a family, attend. The laurel around the shield is symbolizing footprints from a chicken because chickens have always been a part of our lives...if we don't fry em...we fly em!